Amazon has no Black executives on its top leadership council after a retail management shake-up

• Two top Black executives are leaving Amazon, according to an internal email Insider obtained.
• Alicia Boler-Davis, SVP of Global Customer Fulfillment, was the only Black person on Amazon's high-level "S-team."

Two top employees are exiting Amazon amid a larger reorganization of its retail business — leaving the company with no Black executives in senior leadership, Insider reported Tuesday.

In an email obtained by Insider on Tuesday, Amazon's SVP of Global Delivery Services John Felton told employees that Alicia Boler-Davis, SVP of global customer fulfillment, and David Bozeman, VP of Amazon Transportation Services, were leaving the company.

"I want to thank Alicia and Dave for their remarkable contributions to the company and our employees. They scaled our operations, launched new capabilities and programs, and demonstrated relentless passion to make our operations better each and every day," Felton wrote.

Boler-Davis joined Amazon in 2019 but joined the "S-team" (senior team) in August 2020. She was the first Black person and fourth female to join the group, which functioned as former CEO Jeff Bezos' key advisors.

Amazon and Bezos publicly expressed support for the Black Lives Matter movement in May and June 2020, though employees at the time told the New York Times they hoped for more systemic change within the company, especially at the higher ranks.

Boler-Davis is an engineer by training and was at GM for almost 25 years, and left as head of global manufacturing, working directly under the CEO.

Boler-Davis' departure means there are no longer any Black executives on the S-team.

Bozeman has been at Amazon since 2017 and previously worked at Caterpillar, and Harley-Davidson, according to his LinkedIn. He and Boler-Davis were some of the most senior Black executives at the company.

Felton wrote the two employees were going to "explore new opportunities outside Amazon," but it's not certain what those are. Neither responded immediately to a LinkedIn message.

Amazon reported as of December 2021 its total US workforce is 53% men and 47% women and fairly diverse as far as race and ethnicity.

However, Amazon's "senior leaders" level — aka, its top employees— are overwhelmingly white (66.4%) and male, (76%) per the report.

With shareholder pressure, Amazon said in April it was conducting a "racial equity audit" for its hourly workers specifically, led by former US Attorney General (and now private lawyer) Loretta Lynch.

Amazon is in the middle of a personnel and operations shakeup.

On Tuesday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the new CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, aka its retail operations: Doug Herrington, who will be in charge of things like physical stores, e-commerce, and delivery.

Herrington replaced Dave Clark, who surprised the business world when he resigned in early June, after some struggles including opening too many new warehouses and over-hiring — Insider previously reported.

Amazon, by Insider's count, lost at least 50 employees at the vice president level or above in 2021.

Following the announcement of Herrington's new role, Felton wrote in the email Tuesday plans to combine the groups in charge of last and middle mile into one Amazon Transportation team.

An Amazon spokesperson pointed to an email obtained by GeekWire from Jassy to leadership, where he wrote, "Though we've made substantial progress in hiring Level 8 and Level 10 black leaders the last two years, it's not lost on any of us that we're losing two of our most senior black leaders... We have a lot of work left to do."